Russia sees NATO terms on resuming control over weapons in Europe as unrealistic

Oct 10, 2012

RBTH

Interfax

Moscow views as unrealistic NATO's demand that Russia should recognize Georgia within its borders existing as of 2008 and resume the observation of the Conventional Armed Forces Treaty in Europe (CFE) as a precondition for reestablishing control over weapons in Europe, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

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"In talking about the need to resume control over weapons in Europe, our partners from NATO are demanding as a precondition that we recognize Georgia's sovereignty within the 2008 borders and return to the CFE, which we abandoned because its observance had been sabotaged by NATO members. These are absolutely unrealistic terms," Lavrov said at the Federation Council on Wednesday.

This position "make senseless our joint work on problems of control over conventional weapons," he said.

Moscow is also concerned about NATO's growing military presence near Russian borders, he said.

"Increased military activities near Russian borders, modernization of NATO\'s defense structure and its advance toward these borders, and noticeably more frequent military exercises, with the plot of a number of them based on using Article 5 of the Washington Treaty presuming collective defense against aggression from the outside, inevitably causes our questions," Lavrov said.

It is obvious now that the talk about the threat of an attack on NATO countries using conventional weapons cannot be taken seriously, he said.